Top Useful Chrome Extensions for Small Businesses
With its minimal no-nonsense design coupled with powerful technology, Google Chrome has made surfing the web easier and safer. There were hundreds of thousands extensions available on the Chrome Web Store. Their functions may differ, but they all aim for one thing: to improve your browser experience.
With so much choice available, how can you find the extensions that will make the most difference for your small business? Read on for 10 of the most useful Chrome extensions to help you improve your productivity and efficiency.
1. StayFocusd
Finding it hard to stay focused? Too many distractions on the internet? We can’t blame you. Social media platforms, e-magazines, news sites, web games, and more are only a few clicks away when you’re online. It’s easy to get lost in the sea of distractions, but with StayFocusd, you can set a limit on procrastination.
This extension allows you to allot time for browsing, and once the time is up, StayFocusd will block all the time-wasting websites, which will be inaccessible until the end of the day.
You can configure the extension’s settings to choose which sites to block once the clock runs out and which to allow. You can block entire sites or specific pages, subdomains and paths. You can even include on-page content like images, videos, and games.
2. News Feed Eradicator
Facebook has become a necessary tool for entrepreneurs and businesses. With over 2.5 billion monthly active users, Facebook makes it easy for businesses to find and connect with their audience.
However, it also makes for a big distraction. It’s all too easy to log in to the platform to do something work-related, but end up getting lost in the feed, watching videos and reading posts. That’s what the News Feed Eradicator extension in Google Chrome can help with.
It does what its name promises to do – eradicates your newsfeed. When you go into this section, you’ll see an inspirational quote replacing all the posts. No more scrolling for hours – when you go into Facebook for work, you’ll actually do what you came to do.
That’s about the only thing it does, so you can still explore the other functions of Facebook. You can still chat with customers, publish posts, or go to the Marketplace. A recent update to this extension also brings it to Twitter.
3. Buffer
Social media is one of the best ways to engage with your audience today. However, coming up with a good social media strategy can take up a lot of your time, especially for small businesses that operate with small marketing teams.
Buffer is a good tool to help solve this issue, automating the posting process on the main social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. You can create time slots to post on each platform every day and create a queue that allows you to schedule posts for months in advance.
The Buffer Chrome extension allows you to save even more time: it sits right on your browser toolbar, and whenever you come across something that you want to share with your followers, all you need to do is click on the extension button.
This allows you to create a new post without leaving the website you’re on. The content will go into the queue that you’ve created on Buffer, taking up the next available time slot. The extension also allows you to publish it on social media right away, as well as scheduling it for a specific time.
4. OneTab
If you’re the kind of person who always has dozens of tabs open on your browser, OneTab can make all the difference during your workday. This extension collapses all of your open tabs into one concise page, helping you reduce much of the clutter on your browser and improve the performance of your computer.
5. LastPass
We all know it’s crucial to be careful with passwords, especially in a business. However, your company also needs to share login details for several tools among countless team members, so if you don’t have a secure way of sharing this information, your business is exposed to an unnecessary risk.
LastPass seeks to solve this issue. It can generate complex passwords for each of your business tools, store them in a secure environment, and allow you to share them easily and safely with your teammates.
That means you no longer have to remember dozens of different passwords – just the master password for LastPass, which will be unique for each user from your organization.
6. CrankWheel
Another thing you often need to share with your team without too much fuss is your screen. With the meteoric rise of remote work in 2020 and beyond, screen sharing is essential for remote communications, be it with team members or customers.
The CrankWheel extension allows you to share your screen quickly and easily with anyone. You only need to download it to start sharing your screen immediately with anyone, without them needing to download anything. You can even give them remote control of the screen temporarily.
7. Grammarly
Grammarly is a free tool that proofreads everything you write on the internet. It helps you spot mistakes in everything from spelling to preposition usage, pointing out errors and making suggestions if it spots something that can be clearer or better phrased.
If you go for a paid subscription, it can make advanced suggestions, such as rephrasing sentences, adjusting the tone and finding the right word. Overall, Grammarly is a great tool to make sure all your online communications are correct, professional and appropriate.
8. Kami
If you regularly review PDF documents, you’ve probably noticed that it can be hard to share insights with colleagues on this type of document.
Kami is a tool that allows you to do just that, improving collaboration and helping you handle PDFs with ease. With this extension, you can easily make comments, notes, highlight and mark text, give feedback, insert drawings and images, and much more.
